2009 Mercedes-Benz SL63 AMG IWC Edition

For the discerning who want to time their laps in style.

Fast cars and expensive watches—what better way to blow your money than on technology and precision? For the ultimate in style, though, ensure your watch matches your car.

Ever-thoughtful Mercedes AMG now offers one-stop shopping through its four-year-old partnership with Swiss watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen, which already had a hand in designing the clock on the dashboard of some current AMG models.

With the SL63 AMG IWC Edition comes a rare watch. The IWC Grosser Ingenieur (Great Engineer) is hand-assembled in Schaffhausen just across the German-Swiss border, and boasts an impressive 45.5mm-diameter steel housing and a face and wristband inspired by its accompanying car.

The SL63 AMG IWC Edition will be the first car with Mercedes’ “magno” paint. It is not glossy, but rather has a matte, somewhat satin-like finish with stunning depth. Just don’t scratch it because you can’t polish it. Paint repair requires a respray and color-matching is a major challenge. That may explain why Mercedes has hesitated to bring this complex paint to market—after all, we first saw magno-painted prototypes almost two years ago.

While the AMG Performance Studio in Affalterbach, Germany, will be happy to offer you a wide choice of magno colors, the SL63 AMG Edition IWC will come only in magno Kashmir white. The body is accentuated with a carbon package with matte surfaces, contrasting the titanium-gray 19-inch wheels with their polished surface.

Inside, this special edition further distances itself from the base model. You will find brown leather, carbon accents, and AMG and IWC logos in abundance.

The rest of the car remains unchanged—there has been no tampering with the SL63 AMG’s lusty-sounding 517-hp V-8 with its seven-speed multi-clutch transmission that Mercedes says will go 0-to-62 mph in 4.6 seconds. The top speed is governed at 186 mph, as the performance package comes standard.

If you want to get your hands on this stylish car/watch combination, we suggest you make nice with your AMG dealer long before orders are officially taken this fall. Just 200 units will be made and delivered from November 2008 on. An as-yet-undisclosed number of them will come to the U.S. We don’t have pricing yet, but we would not be surprised by something in the $160,000 range.

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